Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Thinx 56: Catalyst

Seven years ago last Sunday, my father died. His passing was noted in a number of places, including the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald, in Column 8, and Wesley Mission's Sharkwatch.

My father was a dangerous man -- dangerous because he acted on his beliefs. He believed in Jesus (and that's often enough danger for most.) However, he also believed that the government, though in its place by the behest of God, is nevertheless a human organisation. Government, at all levels, is staffed by men and women, all subject to the foibles, fears and failings that are part and parcel of being sons and daughters of Adam.

Dad also knew, better than most it seems, that the government is neither all powerful, all present nor all knowing. In fact, quite the opposite: it needs the help and efforts of others in order to get anything done; it often can't see past the end of its own nose; and it is totally incapable of reading people's minds.

So my father set about improving things for the government of his day: he wrote letters -- sometimes 10 or more per week. He sent them to the government, and to the media, by mail, by documents exchange, and later, by email. He wrote on a wide range of subjects: from Starr-Bowkett Societies through to pointed debunkings of whatever the government's "spin of the day" may have been. He wrote tight, dense prose, fortified with legalese, squeezing into a sentence what others often take a paragraph to achieve.

And he did this consistently from the mid 1950s through to the end of the 1990s.

I am the eldest of his children. I am the son of a catalyst. My methods are not his, but his passion is in my blood.

I am also a son of God, and his love compels me to confess his gospel, and also to act upon it.